Language geeks love discussing taboo avoidance. It’s an opportunity to say the damnedest things, all in the name of furthering knowledge. Maybe that’s why Language Log has covered taboo avoidance in English so hilariously and extensively.

China’s taboos extend way beyond bad words, of course, so avoidance is something of an art here. But the following form, from the first line of a language discussion board message, was new to me:

有人问“⿱入肉”字的读法
Yǒu rén wèn “⿱入肉” zì de dúfǎ
There are people who ask how to pronounce “⿱入肉”

[Update: what’s in quotes above should look like this

apparently some fonts don’t render the dotted 日 properly] Continue…

Caution: while the neck-up pics are safe for work, the language really isn’t

In language, one generation’s mispronunciation becomes the next generation’s standard.

In the case of China, one generation’s mispronunciation, intentional or not, becomes the next generation’s mythical animal. A short history: Continue…

I don’t want it to be right but it probably is: ULN at chinayouren predicts Google Buzz will be harmonized and fast, the only question being how quickly.

Personally, I had to invoke my own personal Buzz firewall the first day the service appeared in my gmail. As I squandered precious brain time on update-after-amusing-update, I suddenly realized the Buzz Unread count was growing faster than I could read, let alone actually get other work done. So I turned it off — i.e. dug deep into gmail options and eliminated the Buzz category from my sidebar.

Still, I’d rather not see it blocked, since I agree that has ominous implications for gmail itself.

Language connection? Oh, that’s part of ULN’s predictions in Step 6 of the Google Buzz doom sequence:

More than 50% of the words on GBuzz worldwide are in mandarin characters, and about 10% of them are some form of 妈/逼 word construction (mother /cunt). Continue…